The ‘Vote for a change’ campaign is demanding that a referendum on moving towards a more proportional voting system is held by the time of the next election in 2010. They are counting down the 100 days the government have to make sure the legislation for a referendum is in the next Queen’s Speech and so becomes part of the legislative programme for the year.
I have added their countdown widget to my sidebar, and so can you.
16th August 2009
5:09 pm
0
Before I start posting on this blog in earnest, I thought I had better set out how it came about.
Since September 2006, that’s approaching almost three years ago, I have been writing my Process Guy blog. I used it to write mainly about politics, especially the internal affairs of the Liberal Democrats, and in a random way about other things that interested me or I felt strongly about. I did not have any great purpose for the blog other than to develop my writing skills and learn about the process of blogging.
This I feel I have achieved. So much so that I began to have wider ambitions for the blog. I began to want to see if I could use it to start influencing opinions. The main focus for this was again the internal affairs of the Liberal Democrats. However, my attempts to do this led to me feeling restricted by the format of my old blog. This was partly the technical limitiations of the Blogger platform, but also the style of the blog that I had adopted, and in particular the name. While I knew what I meant by “Process Guy”, I’m not sure anyone else did! In fact, it may have put some people off.
I admit that any lack of success with my blogging can be attributed more to my inability to post frequently than anything else. It has to be said that the frequency of my posts was somewhat erratic. However, I felt a new approach was needed.
At the same time I was becoming more conscious that I was failing to get the most out of my various online presences. I believe that having a strong online identity will be important for me in achieving those things I want to achieve both in politics and professionally. I am not sure my old blog, the small website (more a holding page) that used to be at this URL, and the other places that stuff about me can be found online were really doing me justice.
So it was becoming clear that it was time for a change.
I have to give credit where it is due and say that the catalyst for finally deciding to get on and make that change, the motivating spark for setting up this website in it’s current form, came from Lib Dem online guru Mark Pack. When he launched his current blog I was impressed by what he had done. By combining his different online outputs and consolidating his various writing in one place he has created a very strong online home.
While what I do online is rather modest when compared to Mark, I was inspired to go away and come up with a completely fresh approach that would fit with what I want to do. So I shut up shop at the old blog, spent some weeks doing some head scratching, and then spent more weeks playing around with WordPress template code, and this is the result.
I hope you like it.
10th August 2009
6:00 pm
2
This section of the website will be for, well, a miscellany of writing about a wide range of topics. Basically everything that doesn’t fit into the other categories.
I’m expecting it to cover music, film and television, food and drink, and anything else that occurs. I am also expecting a lot of the posts here to be in the form of reviews of things I have been to, read, heard or watched.
8th August 2009
11:03 am
0
I was born in the Luton and Dunstable Hospital and grew up a few minutes walk away in the part of town known as the Poet’s area (it has streets named Byron, Shelley and Shakespeare). I was educated at Ferrars Infants and Junior schools, Halyard High School, and the Luton VIth Form College. My first job, other than a paper round, was working Saturdays in the W H Smiths in the Arndale.
I now live in Leagrave, a few minutes walk away from the station, and represent as a local councillor the Challney Ward on Luton Borough Council.
Luton is my town. It is a part of who I am. It is where I come from. It has it’s faults, it’s problems and it’s frustrations – but I am proud of it. I am proud to be a Lutonian and have become even more so as I have got involved in different aspects of the life of the Town as a councillor.
I see myself as a Bedfordshire person also.
In this section of my website I will be writing about my Town and the County it sits within. I hope exploring it’s past, thinking about it’s future, and trying to understand it’s politics, it’s economy and it’s diverse and vibrant society.
8th August 2009
11:02 am
0
This section of the website is where I will be writing about the media and technology.
These are, I suppose, my more professional concerns. Some years ago I studied for a masters degree in multimedia. I have had a long standing interest in the impact that technology has on society and have helped shape media policy for the Liberal Democrats. My working life has been as a web editor and developer for a number of different organisations, mostly in the voluntary and public sectors, and on projects through my company, Grit and Oyster Limited.
This means that internet technology and new media – it’s development, it’s uses and abuses – are of great importance to me.
Here I hope to write about not just the geeky stuff, although there should be plenty of that, but also about the wider implications of how new communications technology is used.
8th August 2009
11:01 am
0
I am a political animal. I think about politics, I do politics, and I write about politics.
My politics is distinctively liberal in its flavour. That is little “l” liberal in that liberalism characterises my philosophy, my approach and my attitudes, and it is big “L” liberal in that, for many years now, I have been a member of and advocate for the Liberal Democrats.
So this section of the website is for my political writings.
I am local councillor in Luton, so I have a strong interest in localism and local government. I am deeply concerned about environmental issues, in the broadest sense. I am interested in political ideas and political history. I have also a developing interest in theories of organisation and leadership.
All this and more should be covered here.
8th August 2009
11:01 am
0
I am in the process of updating this website with a new WordPress based blog.
It will all look a bit of a mess while I get everything sorted.
I suggest you come back and have a look in a few days.
8th August 2009
11:00 am
0
